Healthier Kids — By Design

As we noted
the other day, First Lady Michelle Obama has launched a multifaceted
initiative to reduce child obesity in the United States called Let’s Move. It’s a
campaign that emphasizes the ways in which getting children up and
active can help to improve their health for a lifetime.

The Let’s Move agenda focuses on access to healthy foods, outdoor
play time, family involvement and healthier schools. But in an article
published on The
City Fix yesterday, Megan McConville writes that one important
piece is so far missing from the mix: planning and design. McConville
has some suggestions to fix that:

make it safer and easier for kids to bike and walk. Taking public
transportation allows for more activity than riding in a car. Traffic
calming and design mechanisms focused on pedestrians instead of
motorists make streets less dangerous for children. And creating
compact, walkable, mixed-use communities with nearby destinations and
vibrant streetscapes mean more daily activity for children and their
parents, and more open space for them to play in.

The First Lady could build on past efforts that successfully
connected planning, physical activity and children’s issues. For one,
the former Mayor of Bogotá, Enrique
Peñalosa, showed us how orienting an urban revitalization effort
around kids’ needs can be advantageous for everyone. According
to his philosophy,
a city that is safe and enjoyable for children — our most vulnerable
population — is a good city.…

The First Lady should include the U.S
Department of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development,
Environmental Protection Agency and Office of Urban Affairs leadership
in her task force, and she should reach out to mayors across the
country (she
has the support of two already). This group could piggyback on the
good work already being done through the federal Livability Initiative
and by groups like the U.S.
Conference of Mayors.

While I absolutely support neighborhood schools, complete streets and bicycle infrastructure safe enough for eight-year-olds, it’s crazy to sponsor these things while also continuing to subsidize corn that goes into high fructose corn syrup that very directly makes people (including children) obese and diabetic. Stop subsidizing corn (that in turn subsidizes soda pop, feedlot meat and ethanol); subsidize farmers’ markets instead. Tax high fructose corn syrup and fast food; help people relearn how to cook for themselves. We subsidize corn almost entirely because Iowa is the second state in the presidential primaries. It is insane policy, and we pay the price in escalating health care costs and a populace debilitated by the enormity of their own bodies.